Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

68 reviews

remaininlullaby's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

SO GOOD. whatever you think you're getting into, it's more. complex relationships, well thought out character development and challenging magic system. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Terminal illness and Death of parent

Minor: Suicide, Murder, Drug use, and Car accident

janacc's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide and Murder

Moderate: Terminal illness

itsheyfay's review

challenging dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Suicide attempt, Body horror, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Kidnapping, and Suicide

Moderate: Death of parent, Gun violence, Infidelity, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, and Child death

Minor: Terminal illness

aliyachaudhry's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Classism, Confinement, Cursing, Fire/Fire injury, Gun violence, Death of parent, Terminal illness, Infidelity, Mass/school shootings, Toxic friendship, Death, Murder, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Sexual content, and Kidnapping

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship and Alcohol

vic127's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Murder, Suicide, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Death of parent, Alcohol, and Drug use

Minor: Death of parent, Terminal illness, Violence, and Blood

jankmab's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Minor: Terminal illness and Toxic friendship

em_of_swags's review against another edition

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.25

thought the magic system and motivations of the characters were pretty interesting but the amount of sexuality made me uncomfortable (yes I know this is an adult book, it could have been violence ok?) and I didn't fully grasp the clear line of the plot

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Kidnapping, Emotional abuse, Murder, Violence, Death of parent, Suicide attempt, Sexual content, Mass/school shootings, Alcohol, Suicidal thoughts, Grief, and Death

Minor: Terminal illness

kaylamoran's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

From the moment I heard that a self published book had exploded and was going to be traditionally published, I knew I had to read it.  I saw so many good reviews that it became a 5 star prediction for me.  I do think my crazy expectations did it no favours, but I loved it nonetheless.  A few things about the writing style or pacing irked me at times, but the story and the characters kept me going.  Multi POV is one of my absolute favourite fantasy tropes, so I loved that part of it as well.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Suicide, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, and Panic attacks/disorders

Minor: Alcohol, Confinement, Kidnapping, Blood, and Death of parent

thaliareads's review

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Really interesting concept and a diverse cast of characters. I do sort of wish I had read it as a physical or e-book the first time instead of listening to the audiobook. It was a bit tough for me to separate the characters at first since the way I listen to audiobooks while I'm doing other things I sometimes missed when a switch in character was announced. However, this is my personal experience and overall I really enjoyed the narration of this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Gun violence, and Death of parent

Moderate: Grief, Terminal illness, Murder, Mass/school shootings, Violence, Death, and Torture

Minor: Alcohol

The main plot does involve the six initiates protecting the society which does involve fairly detailed fighting with enemies who try to break in

this extends to torturing and killing some of those who made it through the wards.

. Minor spoiler

one of the initiates had a sibling who died from an incurable terminal illness.

Large spoilers

One of the characters had to watch his mom die in a mass shooting and relive that day over and over again. Additionally, the initiates realize that while there are six of them - they won't have to pick one of them to leave - they have to pick one of them to kill. There is some graphic sexual content in multiple instances. Some is a M/F pairing, the other instance is a M/F/F threesome.

livlamentloathe's review

adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

The ending reveal felt like a missing piece someone found under the carpet a week later. Like yeah, it solved the problem, but we didn’t even know it was missing until it was all but revealed! We had very little to go on until the mystery was revealed in the final chapter.

Ezra was good but not good but also nothing? I don’t like that he would’ve been the villain but Atlas was actually the villain so Ezra’s not the villain now? But was supposed to be before the book???

The language was VERY flowery. It was lowkey bothering me but I didn’t know what “it” was until my roommate brought it to my attention. Once she mentioned the “flowery language,” the lightbulb over my head turned on. It was excessive. A lot of the writing was redundant and repetitive. A lot of telling, not enough showing. Oh yes, they’re the very best, wow. But no examples to clarify what “typical” magicians were like beyond some references in explanations. There was  never any proof beyond Libby and Nico that any of them were better than any others.

Reina doesn’t do anything. Callum is the obvious villain slash scapegoat/martyr. Parisa can’t get into anyone’s mind if they set a block up? Tristan was only just figuring out his powers by the end.

There was no show! All tell, tell, tell. Overall, I think the whole magic system was too cerebral.

Also there was no emotion on the page. At all. I wanted to ship Libby and Nico from the first scene. Duh, enemies to lovers. Easy fave of mine. But I’m really not sure where this is aiming the characters.

Is Tristan/Libby supposed to be a thing there? Libby only ever showed mild interest in him. Only sexual after it became sexual a la Parisa. And then it was just thought. No emotion still. I felt like I should want to ship them or Gideon/Nico but the emotional anchor wasn’t there. It was almost too academic. 

There was no character arc for any of them. No believable change in any of them. Sometimes they changed based on one scene or another but almost all feelings just came out of nowhere. Time kind of skipped around at will and that changed how they felt but it was strange and disconnected. Like we were meant to be suspicious all the time but there was never a satisfying pay off.
 

There were too many blocks and curtains in the way. I hate unecessary blockades when they don’t occur naturally! By this I mean that they were all purposefully lying and withholding the truth EVEN from the reader. So it always felt like we were missing something but we never found out what. Conversation happens more naturally than exemplified in this book.

I will say there was a lot that I enjoyed. I liked all the characters (minus the obvious). I was interested in what came next and how they got there. I was curious about the magic systems and who lost, etc. etc. I liked the variety of characters and all their diverse complex backgrounds. It reminded me at times of A Deadly Education. I enjoyed Parisa a great deal! And it was so easily enthralling. You’re caught in the mystery so quick and you just have to keep reading! I’m very interested in the next, but I hope that it had better editing than this and that it’s a more satisfying story. I wanted to love this, and I almost did, but there wasn’t quite enough to hold me. I need more emotion and passion and honesty. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcohol, Suicide attempt, Violence, and Terminal illness

Minor: Death, Murder, and Suicide